I'm feeling a little sorry for myself because I can't find my glasses. Do you know how disorienting it is not to be able to find your glasses? There's a great quote in Lorrie Moore's Anagrams about how the more confusing parts of life are like "trying to find your glasses when you can't see because you don't have your glasses on" and while I've always liked how aptly it seems to describe a particular emotional turmoil, I feel I must state that—beautifully poetic metaphors aside and everything—when you are literally unable to find your glasses, it's just really effing annoying.

I mean, where could they even be? I took them camping this weekend, I remember that—yes, we went camping again; I know, I hardly recognize myself either, but I'm not going to panic until I own something from The North Face—and I don't think I've seen them since. Could I have left them there? Is there now a bespectacled bear walking around under the Redwood trees? A satisfied racoon who'd been waiting for an alternative to those itchy gas permeable contact lenses? Have I inadvertently served the ophthalmological needs of the greater Northern California wildlife population? Are they passing around my specs as we speak? If so, I guess I'll consider it an honorable sacrifice. No Far-Sighted Squirrel Left Behind.

In other news, I got my hair cut over the weekend, and it ended up being more dramatic than the most dramatic rose ceremony yet, which is to say that I went in expecting a trim and ended up with far more than that. Which is okay by me, honestly, because a) it grows back, b) I really like what she did, and c) you get more for your money that way anyway, right? It's economics! They're practically paying you!

Anyway, here it is all sleek and fancy on my jauntily-cocked head:

And here is the way it is actually going to look 99% of the time, which is to say air-dried and product-free and way more rough-and-tumble in a slightly dirty mirror:

And hey, look at that, now we all know what I look like in stripes. Why do I own so many stripes? I blame Pinterest, and also poor impulse control, and also the sailors of Breton who popularized the whole look in the first place, although—if you will forgive me for a second for sounding like that guy at college who insisted he liked the Doors before they got so "mainstream," as though every seventeen year old in the world didn't go through their own Doors phase, starting in about 1967 and continuing on to the present day—I have long been a fan of stripes, so I had a little less further to jump onto this particular bandwagon. Which is good, I guess, because I don't jump very well when I can't see without my glasses.

(I still haven't found my glasses.)

WAIT! SEAN HAS FOUND MY GLASSES! This is particularly fortuitous timing, not only because my eyes are getting a little tired with these contact lenses in, but also because it was going to be kind of a downer to end my blog post on "I still haven't found my glasses" and I would hate to be responsible for you feeling sort of bummed out when you finished reading my blog. I mean, I was half thinking I'd have to post some of those Naked Prince Harry pictures to cheer you up. (Have you seen them? What a scamp! A lovable rogue!)

So that's a relief then: my glasses are back to their rightful owner and this post can end, if not a little anticlimactically, then at least on a happier note than it began. In case you were wondering, they were in my sleeping bag, which reminds me of the time I accidentally took the remote control to the family TV to the Woodstock festival in 1999 and only discovered it at midnight in a tent in upstate New York, leaving my poor parents to watch a lot of Nickelodeon that weekend, I'm sure. Sleeping bags, man: they're the Bermuda Triangle of camping. If you've lost anything in the last 10 years, I suggest you check there first.

Ha -- sleeping bags as the Bermuda Triangle of camping! Love it! My now-14 year-old son once lost his beloved sock monkey (or so he thought) somewhere on the way home from Idaho, and after re-stopping at every gas station and rest stop from our previous trip and imagining lonely Sock Monkey in a ditch off to the side of Highway 26, we eventually found him in Idaho AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SLEEPING BAG! The one he only sleeps in at grandma's. And he found it ON CHRISTMAS EVE. True Christmas miracle story. :)

P.S. Glad Sean found your glasses. Not a pretty thought to imagine them crunching in your sleeping bag next time you tried to nestle in there...

i'm diligently trying to grow my hair out (i've made it nearly 18 months at this point) but when i see pictures like your new haircut it makes me want to throw it all away and chop it off. it's so cute and flattering on you! though if you had truly wanted to match the most dramatic rose ceremony ever, you would have also dyed it peroxide blonde and used the caption "i got a miley!" -- though your haircut is far FAR cuter than hers. i don't understand why some magazines (ahem, People) are now calling it "the miley" whenever someone chops their hair and lightens it. don't give this woman any more attention, please!!

glad you found your glasses. i always lose things when i go camping and they are usually in a pocket, my sleeping bag or buried in my camping backpack. fortunately, i don't wear glasses so i never have to worry about losing them. :)

I am one of those incredibly frustrating people who will inevitably take her contacts out before confirming the location of her glasses and then must scream for her husband to come upstairs and help her find the missing lenses because she can't see anything at all.

We came home from camping once when I was a kid, and couldn't find my little brother. We had the whole neighborhood looking for him up and down the street. Where was he? Asleep in a sleeping bag that was recently unpacked. Sleeping bags ARE the Bermuda Triangle of camping!

Also, I am in 100% agreement with you on the stripes. Every time I bring one home, I shake my head for again breaking my vow to Never Buy Striped Tops.

12

BKC Aug 23, 2012

As a single mom, I have, on occasion, had to enlist my three-year-old to find my glasses. It's really depressing to be standing aside and wringing your hands while a preschooler says, "It's okay Mama, I will keep looking!"

Sleeping bags, man. I once thought I lost my most favorite pair of fleece pants, and was SO SURE the last place I had them was at my BFF's boyfriend's place when we all crashed there for a football game. She even bought me a new pair for Xmas to replace them (but not the same!).

And then, the next time I used my sleeping bag (like a year later), I found them, and a pair of underwear, balled up in the bottom. I vaguely remember wriggling around to change clothes inside the bag because the bathroom was always full and I was in a tiny apartment full of boys with no privacy.

I lost my favorite pair of glasses a couple of weeks ago (I am thankful I have a spare--albeit an embarrassing spare) but they finally turned up. (Great story? Great story.)
More importantly, I love your haircut. I actually like it even better the unstyled/air-dried way. Super cute and makes me want to chop all my hair off.

18

Julie Aug 23, 2012

And somewhere in the redwood forest a near-sighted bear continues to blunder about.
Poor Prince Harry. Young, single, good looking and he can't even have a really good time in Vegas without causing a scandal. What I want to know is who is the douchey "friend" who sold the pictures? That is the person that has does something shameful.

I cannot IMAGINE losing my glasses! I rise in the morning to a very, very fuzzy world (so fuzzy that I would be better off driving whilst under anesthesia than without corrective eye lenses) so I have to pop those babies on before I can even begin to feel out the world. I was seriously on the edge of my seat, thinking, "But HOW is she doing life glasses-less??"

28

Kimberly Aug 24, 2012

We had a long standing joke when I was a kid that there was a fishy ophthalmologist’s office under our dock out on the lake...thank goodness we were providing such a great service to the fishies by losing all our glasses (sun/prescription/reading) while sitting on that dock.

29

Nothing But BonfiresAug 24, 2012

Aww, thank you for the nice words about the hair, everyone! If you are on the fence, I say CHOP IT OFF IMMEDIATELY! Suddenly my oh-god-do-I-have-a-ponytail-holder dilemma has been solved forever!

Mia: the shirt in the second picture is from French Connection, by which I mean that the LABEL says French Connection but I got it at TJ Maxx (as I do with most of my clothes. Well, the ones that aren't from Marshalls, anyway.)

Holly, you know I love you, but I am never (voluntarily) cutting off all my hair. You overlook the other OTHER white meat, which is being able to tie your actual hair into a knot to keep it out of your way, thus ALSO avoiding the need for ponytail holders! And, as I do not have an awesome British accent nor lips like Angelina Jolie, my hair is really all I've got. So, you know, just... no. But on you, c'est magnifique! 8-)